Infinite | Chosen Series book one ❄️

6

The continuous blaring of a siren jarrs me from my sleep. I jump at the noise, sitting up straight in bed. Looking around wildly, I fear that some sort of emergency is underway. My worries are quickly calmed though when CeCe walks into the room and cheerfully says, "Wake up you amazing little things! It's a new day and we have things to do!"

I push off my blankets and climb down the ladder, flinching a bit when my bare feet hit the cold metal bars. Nate's already awake, kneeling down to get his clothes from the boxes under the bed. When my foot hits the floor beside him, he looks up and smiles. "Morning."

"Good morning," I reply. "Sleep okay?"

"Mm..." He makes a face. "Not really. It was weird being with so many strangers."

I sit on his bed and look down at him. "I know what you mean. I slept alright though, but I'm sure if I wasn't so tired from everything that had happened I would have found it hard to sleep."

He nods and stands up with his clothes in hand. "I'll be back. Want to get to the bathrooms before the line gets crazy long."

"Alright," I say softly. As he goes, I pull the blankets off of Jen.

"NO." She growls. "DIE."

"Geez." I throw my hands up in an 'I surrender' kind of way. "Fine. If you don't want to go live the amazing life of a Chosen..."

"I prefer sleep."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "You're going to get in trouble I bet."

"I'll deal with it." She turns, wrapping herself in blankets once more.

"Oh just get up!" I whine.

"Fine! But you owe me."

"What? No I don't. You're not helping me in any way."

"Uhm, I'm going to be gracing you with my presence all day." She rolls her eyes and finally gets out of bed.

"Ugh." I sigh, acting as annoyed as I can.

"I'm awake now." She laughs. "Go get ready!"

I nod and reach for my box of clothes. Inside are a pair of black skinny jeans, a black tank top, and a blue hoodie. When I look up to see the people leaving the bathrooms who have already gotten changed, I notice that we all have the same thing. The guy's hoodies and jeans are a bit different, but are the exact same colours.

We're gonna look like a little blue and black army.

After I --and everyone else-- have gotten ready, CeCe asks us to line up. A female security guard stands beside her, arms folded in that typical, tough looking way. "I'm sure some of you have noticed the preference towards the colour blue around here."

A few people nod, eyes fixed on her.

"You'll be told why that is in a few minutes. For now, take a peek outside at another thing to do with colours." She flickes her gaze over to the windows.

It takes a minute to push my way over to them, but once I do and look out I immediately see what she meant. There are three groups of people, clearly the Chosen, all in coloured hoodies.  One group is brown, one group is purple, and one group is yellow. The colours together make me think of a bruise.

Within the group of yellows, I see Carrie. "Each age group is assigned a colour?" I ask, trying making my voice loud enough that CeCe can hear me. Someone else hears me and says it louder though, and the credit goes to them. I frown, but listen to CeCe praise them anyway.

"Yes! That's right!" She seems very excited. "You must be wearing something of your colour at all times, so we always know where you belong."

"But wait? Couldn't someone else in another group wear blue? Then we'd think they were Sixteen," a tall, pretty girl with glasses says.